The Herald of Autumn (Echoes of the Untold Age Book 1) (4 page)

The creature had begun devouring
everything I had ever been.

Panicked, I wrenched myself away,
half-rolling, half-stumbling.

My bow.
I scarcely had time to reach for it
before I felt those warped talons open the skin of my back.

I screamed, flooded with pain like
nothing I had ever known.

I could no longer dally with the
thing. I no longer cared about leading it anywhere. All that mattered, foremost
in my world, was escape. I didn’t know what would happen if the thing kept
feeding from me, and I had no intention of finding out.

All I had to do was reach for my bow.
I was faster than the empty thing. It would be nothing for me to remain out of
range… or so I hoped.

If I were wrong, however, my bow
would bring me a step closer toward the Great Hunt. The Hunter was far beyond
my control. If I accidentally called him from fear or anger, he could sweep
through Mount Chase, dragging every man, woman, and child with him on his mad,
frenzied Hunt. People would die without question.

I needed another weapon, another
option. I needed something else I could use to end the creature.

I would only draw my bow as a last
resort.

My feet pounded the soft earth,
secret terror hurling me away from the shadowed monster. I ran blindly,
panicked, I made the nearby rise in three leaps, fleeing like prey. Then, I
slid toward the gully before I fully realized what had happened. I scrabbled
along the ground as I slipped down, trying to slow. The mud-slicked earth,
however, slid me full force into an ancient spruce tree.

The abomination’s keening chased
behind me. It was relentless. It did not tire.

I needed help. I needed—

Spruce tree.

That was a slender chance.

I wove my way into the tangled morass
of boughs and needles, pushing my way next to the trunk through the tight fit
of branches woven densely into each other. I hugged myself to the trunk, feeling
rough bark and sticky tree tears against my naked skin.

Please.

I could use some help here, old
friend.

Faint. She felt so faint. I had no
idea of how long she had slept; it could have been years.

She might never awaken again.

I didn’t have time to be gentle,
unfortunately. The fetch had crested the hill and would have me in moments.

I had her Name; I knew it from when
we lived across the dark ocean. I hoped she wouldn’t hate me for using it.

I pressed my hand to the trunk.

 “
Jillian Greenspruce
!” The
world trembled as the name tore through me like a wind from beneath the earth.
I beckoned her with every whisper of what I was, beseeching. It mattered little
how long she had slept. It was almost impossible to ignore a beckoning that
one’s Name evoked.

The creature’s keening howl grew
closer. It sounded triumphant, certain.

You dare much,
Tommy Maple
.
Her thoughts were cold, distant. I
could feel her petulance, and the underlying anger we all felt when accosted
with our Name.

My need is great, sister.
She wasn’t kith or kin, but I truly
found no other word. Because I knew her true Name, I became closer than any
lover or any bond of blood.
Only you could answer so formidable a need.

Her smirk laced her reply.

Your honey-tongue doesn’t snare me, O
Great Herald.
She
wouldn’t awaken fully, yet even so, she became more present, more real.

I glanced up the rise at the
shambling thing, only now coming down the ridge. It leered, hungrily.

I have not long for honeyed words,
sister. I am hunted, stalked by darkness dire. I need a boon, else there will
be a new Herald of Autumn.

I don’t know how much I can do,
Tommy. You must stop poking at the things in the darkness.

I know you feel it, dear sister. I
need to kill it. It won’t stop hunting me.

She considered for a moment, weighing
unbroken years of life and wisdom. Spruce and I had always been on friendly
terms, a fortunate happenstance.

No minor boon, this, Tommy. Not for
crying my Name to the ends of the world. Not for dragging me from my bower of
cold.
Such is the
nature of my people. Murder stood less than four strides from me, and she
bargained for a greater boon.

Agreed.
I tried not to hurry her as my
terror grew.

A boon for a weapon?

Exactly what I had thought.
Agreed
twice! A boon, struck square. Just give me something, anything, I can use to
kill this—!

Above you.

Just over my head was a thick, dead
bough. Stouter than my wrist, it was certainly strong enough to support my
weight. I doubted I could break it. Jillian would not deal me crooked, however.

Thrice agreed. Bargain made.
I jumped straight up, catching it
with both hands. Breaking it struck me as impossible, and yet it did, a perfect
break that left a wicked point in my hands.

A mere branch is not a greater boon,
Tommy. I must give more. You wouldn’t rob me, would you?

Upon me now, the fetch attempted to
wend its way into the tree’s bower, hindered by the stout branches.

I clung close to the sap-covered
trunk as the magnificent tree thwarted the fetch. No matter how the shamble-man
tried, it couldn’t pass her thick boughs. I was safe—for the moment.

I’ve learned many-a-thing on this
hill, Tommy. Once, in a twilight long forgotten, a fire-fae whispered to me
that one with need would come.
I felt her strength, even if she weren’t yet entirely present.
The old spruce acted as a window for her, and she cast the threads of her
Telling through it.
Care for a story of how that limb died? Care to know
from whence came yon spear?

My brow furrowed. I needed to be
careful here.

Such a tale could be useful, Jillian.
Could make a greater boon twice-fair
. While I couldn’t Tell myself stories—for any who did was
certainly damned, a fool, or human-born—I could easily ride along on Jillian’s
words. Whereas the Old Man and I had sparred, Jillian and I could sing together.

If I had time.

The fetch circled the tree, huffing
its great, hollow, terrible breath. Still, it could not reach me for the spruce
itself confounded the creature.

Jillian began with no seeming
concern.

It was the greatest storm in
two-hundred years. The sky-folke had gone to war with the hidden people, such a
great confrontation that the very forest could fall in its wake.

Her words echoed in my mind, a secret
history of the wood that none but her knew.

Thunder raged against mountain, yet
neither one gave way. Rain attempted to wash away stone but to no avail.
Finally, the sky-folke struck upon a secret plan. They would use rune and guile
to craft a new weapon to burn the forest to ash and stone.

Her words shaped the world that
drifted around us in the mist and darkness of night. The fetch still circled
methodically, trying to reach me, an impossible task. I slid ’round and ’round
the trunk while the spruce shifted her boughs between us.

Yet the hidden ones, the
forest-dwellers, had many friends, and one of them was the tiny sprite, Noeme,
whom we shelter and keep. She came to us, whispering the diabolical plans of
the sky-folke, and we were afraid. We realized that one of us would have to
stand out, would have to step forward and protect us all. From the entire wood,
among the ancient oaks and the lithe elms, I was chosen. All that stood there
honored my strength. I went three days and nights without tasting the wind,
fasting from sun and water. I spoke with dryad and nymph, and all bore their secrets
to me. When my mind grew clear, I stood forth, ready to die for my people.

Her Telling rang true now. I felt it,
cool wind on my skin. The sky-folke laughed—

The sky-folke laughed when they saw
me, so young and small. They knew their weapon would destroy me, and they
sought to make me into an example, to weave fear among the hidden-people. They
drew back their fearsome arms. With thunder riding the wind, they hurled their
sky-fire.

I saw it all; clear as the moon at
night.

Lightning tore through the air, tore
into me. My body was rent in the limb you now hold. It burned me.

I felt Jillian’s grin, almost feral
in wild victory. Elation coursed through me. She had been strong—

Yet I was strong. The voice of the
First Mother flowed through me. I had fasted from wind and sun and rain until
my mind was pristine. I caught and held their sky-fire.

Right here she stopped in the long
pause that all Tellings require. Lost to the world, I drifted on her whispered
words. My fears of the scrabbling fetch and Old Man Coyote became wisps, less
substantial than her story.

Her Telling was all that mattered.

I held the fire all this time, Tommy.
Held it so it would never—

Never be used against her people
again. Held it here, waiting, until one day—

—until one day I knew someone would
come, someone with a need.

I felt it in my hand. The sharp
branch held lightning, held sky-fire. She couldn’t have known—

I didn’t know when someone would come
or what their need would be, but I held it here, a secret behind my heart. I
held it for you, these long years, so you could place rest to yon fell shadow.

Almost as if on cue, the thing roared
again. I grinned at the empty, unknowing face of the fetch. In my hand, the
spear felt light, its tip glowing, dropping small sparks to the ground. Mad
glee tore through me, fear banished to the far corner of my heart. I could
scarcely feel where the creature had rent me open.

Wind sang through the old spruce.

The hunt was on
.

I wefted my way through the old
spruce boughs, ever staying just beyond the emaciated reach of the shamble-man.
It drew slow, wet breaths as it stalked me, relentless. Hunger poured from its
eyes like madness and ichor.

The sky thundered. A single drop of
autumn rain fell.

Safe in the spruce, I led the thing
’round the tree until the shrouded moon cast over my shoulder.

Behind me loomed the same mud-slicked
hill we had both slid down before. This time, however, I knew that hill and
knew where it would try to tarry me. Casting a smile at the shadowed monster, I
hurled myself backward, out of the spruce’s bower.

Two quick leaps placed me partway up
the hill.

The fetch had whispered its nature to
me as we danced around the old spruce. Devoid of anything beyond feckless
hunger, its most obvious flaw made my task simpler. If it possessed the
slightest bit of cunning, it could have reached me, working its way through the
spruce bower. Its relentless hunger had not paid off without a mind to guide
it.

The naked corpse shambled along in
the dirt, but the twisted thing within him was all that was real. The creature
hung in my dreaming eye, a splinter in my mind. I could see its horror, like a
faint echo, over and around this poor man.

Patient and merciless, it keened at
me again with that dim, mindless hunger.

So I stood on that yellowed hill, the
cloud-cast moon tracing pale fingers across my nakedness like a lover. The
fetch canted its head at me and then did the only thing it knew, the only thing
it could possibly do. With a steady, inevitable lope, it worked its way around
the tree and made straight for me. No thought, no premeditation.

Seven strides away.

At four strides, I could hear its
wet, hungry breath.

At three, I could smell fetid
darkness, the rotting of everything wholesome and fair.

It reached for me when it was two
strides away, its long, double-jointed arms all angles and talons.

With its near foot coming down, right
into the center of the mud-slick, I dropped low and spun. The blunt end of my
spear whipped around me, sailing directly for its other, stable knee. Quicker
than quick I connected, snapping the knee to the side. I struck just as the
near foot came down into the mud. The all-too-human bone shattered with a loud
crack. The thing fell straight down into the sludge.

It did not scream but just heaved that
wet, rattling breath. Its head slowly turned toward me, those vacant eyes still
cascading with darkness and flame. Its right arm snaked forward, all sharp,
ravenous fury.

I dove out of its reach, ending in a
crouch.

My golden eyes met its hollow gaze, faint
in the clouded moonlight.

With inexorable determination, it
began to drag itself forward, panting.

I had guessed that it would not stop,
would never stop. If I wished, I could easily be off and away. It would take
hours, maybe days for the thing to catch me with a shattered knee. That,
however, was out of the question.

The Old Man had called me right.
“So,
later, when yeh’re all wild and free, all rearin’ to hunt what ails the
world....”
Such righteousness formed part of autumn, part of what I was. This
thing had no place in our world, never had. Its existence encompassed a miasma
of darkened dreams. What had once been a man now formed one of the world’s
sorrows.

My purpose was to hunt it.

A thought crept forward in my mind,
like some great sleeping thing, troubled.
Is this why Old Man Coyote had
beckoned me here?
I shook it away. That didn’t matter just now.

It wriggled up the hill, dragging
itself with those bent arms and its one good leg. The mud-slick yet slowed it,
but the creature showed no dismay. Its purpose had not changed. It remained
utterly implacable.

For one mortal-born or lacking the
sight, what happened next must have seemed cruel, almost savage. If Molly
strolled over the rise, she would see me take a running start and leap toward
an old, crippled man. She would watch, no doubt with horror, as I plunged my
primitive spear into the old man’s head.

The truth was far more complex.

The creature attempted to strike at
me even as I came down upon it.

I bore the spear down with all my
weight, feeling the heat and fury of the sky-fire trapped within. As the spear
thrust through its open mouth, it pierced the back of the abomination’s throat.
Suddenly, blazing fury flashed across the night, seen only by my dreaming eye.

The spear burst through the back of
the dead man’s head. The lightning born of Telling and ancient storms burned
its way through the shadowed monster. Its keening howl rose into a rending
scream as I bore down on the spear, twisting through the back of the dead man’s
skull.

Then, silence.

The twisted creature faded from the
shadows behind my mind. The dead man’s eyes twitched. I stepped back with a
start, my heart pounding.

But I’d thought...

He
had
been dead.

I tried to wrest the spear free. On
the third yank, the spear pulled loose, and the man’s head sank back.

Spiders born of nightmare erupted
from the fatal wound as well as the corpse’s mouth, nose, and eyes. Tiny,
twisted things, malformed and broken, swarmed over him. They had made the eyes
twitch. The things gnawed their way through his flesh, pouring out onto the
ground.

I stood, horrified, transfixed.

This thing had not been a fetch; it
was nothing born of my kind.

I stumbled backward as the corpse
continued to twitch and writhe. It brimmed with the abominations. The leaves
rustled as they skittered away from the body.

Toward me.

My spear was spent. Regardless, it
would have been useless against the swarm of tiny creatures.

I leapt back to the top of the hill and
then peered down into the hollow. The moon still played go-seek, hiding within
the thick clouds. Rain hung in the air but refused to fall.

I listened close to the ground,
expecting to catch the rustling as they came for me.

Nothing.

The moon shone for an instant. My
hunter’s eyes could see the ground again. The body had stopped twitching, and
the corpse appeared empty.

I saw nothing else, no sign of the
twisted, many-legged horrors, as if they had never been there at all.

I crept down the hill, listening.
Nothing but wind and distant thunder.

Now, the corpse certainly was dead. I
prodded its flesh with a stick, shocked to see bits crumble away, little more
than dust.

Relief.

Unlike a fetch, this pile of motes
would call no attention to itself after the rain.

I hated that this blasphemous thing
had died so close to one of Jillian’s trees. I walked over to the spruce,
reaching out with my whispering heart.

Are you still there? I slew the
creature. It
—I felt
for her, remembering her petulance, the feel of her grin, her constant teasing…

Nothing.

She was gone.

I don’t know how much you still hear,
Jillian. Simply know your boon was well made.

I sighed as the wind rustled the
spruce’s massive boughs.

I was alone again.

Like almost all of my kind, Jillian
slept longer and longer, lying deep in a strange torpor, the true cause of
which we might never know. Fewer and fewer of us awoke in these shadowed times.
Our greatest seers had no explanation, not even guesses at the cause. We spoke
in guarded whispers of a day when we would never again awaken.

We were waning. We had been waning
for so long. I fought hard to remember the world that was and who we had been.
Jillian, Garret Oak-bones, Rimewing Marta, even Poor Wil Nightingale. I missed
them all.

And Hraefn. I missed Hraefn the most.

May we meet on far shores, Jillian.

I rested my hand on her spruce. The
phrase meant so many things: a wish to live while one could, a wish to taste
life. It held a hope that if we slept here, perhaps we would awaken elsewhere,
in a land not overtaken with slaughtered faith and rotten imaginings.

The Untold Age drew nigh.

I waited for a moment, silently
begging to feel her still here, any small whisper of her. The deepest places
within me yearned for any touchstone with my kind.

With home.

“On far shores, Tommy.” I spoke the
response to the familiar phrase aloud, just so I could hear it. My breath
trailed mist in the dampening night.

“May we meet and dwell there ever after.”